Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man

It’s really a coincidence that one of the big holiday movies this year is Charlotte’s Web. It’s basically about a spider and a pig. The coincidence is that I recently had a run in with a spider, which I guess makes me the pig.

A couple of weeks before Christmas I was sitting at home watching TV when my wife and 9-year-old daughter walked in. They both looked as though they just saw the movie The Grudge. I asked my wife what happened and opened the flood-gates of her panic.

She shuddered and exclaimed, “Ron, there’s something in my car - and it crawled on my feet!” Our daughter chimed in, “Dad, it was on my head!” I started laughing because of the mental picture I had, but that was a big mistake.

My wife then sentenced me with catching whatever it was in her car. I figured it might be a cockroach, so I set up a bunch of those sticky traps throughout her ride. A few days passed, the traps were empty so I convinced my wife that the culprit abandoned her car.

About a week later my wife, daughter and I were in her car in town. I had to make a stop so before heading home in traffic, I left them to run a quick errand. I was talking to someone when I turned around and saw that my wife and daughter were right behind me.

In what I liken to a Mary Tyler Moore/Laura Petrie wavering voice, my wife said, “Ron, it’s a huge spider!” I went back to the car, but the elusive spider was nowhere to be found. My girls insisted we rent a hotel room or catch the bus home as they were not going back in the car.

I said that was ridiculous, and told them to get in the car and that the spider would not come out. They both huddled in the back seat and curled up into a ball. Showing no fear, I chauffeured us right into major traffic. As I sat there, I started to sense that something was crawling up my leg.

It took every ounce of self-control not to yell and jump out of the car. I kept trying to brush the spider off without alarming my passengers. If I did, massive panic would ensue. By the time we got home, I was drenched in sweat. As soon as my wife and daughter went into the house, I stripped off all my clothes and ran around the garage like a madman. There was no spider to be found.

That night when we went to bed, I heard my wife utter, “Ron, stop tickling my feet.”

clearthesmoke.org

Ron’s WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

www.clearthesmoke.org

As we head into the smokiest day in the year, Charlisse Chang of Bennet Group PR sent in a site that helps “clear the air” about Hawaii’s new smoke-free law: